Brent: Is Further Rise in Oil Prices Possible?
Today at 22:30 (GMT+2) American Petroleum Institute (API) will release the data on oil inventories in the US oil depot terminals for the last week.
According to API oil reserves in the USA have grown by 3.1 million barrels for a week before last. US Department of Energy has confirmed the rise in oil reserves by 2.08 million barrels.
It is expected that oil reserves will also grow in the last week. There are some grounds for such expectations. Private company Genscape reported yesterday that an increase of oil reserves in the main US oil depot terminal. According to Genscape weekly report, oil reserves in Cushing Oklahoma rose by about на 1.5 million barrels.
In respond to the presented information futures for crude oil Brent at ICE Futures fell by 1.4% to 44.48 USD per barrel. Yesterday, crude oil Brent was traded in the narrow range and closing spot-price was at the level of 44.75 USD per barrel. Last week, the price has reached the new annual highs above the level of 46.00 on the information about the strike of the oil workers in Kuwait, which could have resulted in disruptions of oil supply to the world market.
However, the strike finished and the meeting in Doha, where an agreement to freeze oil production was expected to be reached, ended in vain. Iran continues to increase oil production and as expected US oil reserves, which have reached a record of 500 million barrels, will grow again.
US Department of Energy will release the data on oil reserves on Wednesday (16:30 GMT+2). Later, at 20:00 US Fed will announce interest rate decision.
It is expected that the rate will remain unchanged at the 2-day meeting, which will start today. However, it is possible that the Central Bank will give positive assessment of the state of the national and world economies and in this case, chances of the interest rate increase in June will grow.
Given the above, we can presume that oil prices have reached the threshold of the corrective rally, which started at the end of January. Further rise in price is questionable. If the increasing oversupply will not be balanced by the increase in demand, the prices will quickly go back to the level of 30.00 USD a barrel.
